Origin, Nature and Function of Paralinguistic Cues in the Human Voice - Essay Example

? HUMAN VOCALIZATION: (DISCUSS THE ORIGIN, NATURE AND FUNCTION OF PARALINGUISTIC CUES IN THE HUMAN VOICE). By of the ofthe Professor Name of the School City, State 23 December 2013 Introduction There is usually a lot of information delivered by human beings when they are in a state of communication. When two people are conversing, the content of the voices deliver not only the speech, but other social information that enhance interaction and impression. Certain spoken words that do not express the language itself, such as mmmh, hah, prrrr and many more are not English words, but are used to shed more meanings in people communication. These words can be used with any local languages and deliver their intent without compromise. Communication is also enhanced by other non verbal communication, which is the key interest here, where the cues act to improve receptive communication. Reid describes paralinguistic cues as powerful non verbal communication elements that have the ability to influence communicated message; and consist of tempo, articulation, emotion, fluidity, dynamic intensity and sonority among others (2013). They consist features of voice impressions, body language and facial expressions, which can be used alone or add emphasis to speeches. However, as the technology increases, the some forms of cues like accent of the writer in written communication are missed out by the reader. The Origin of Paralinguistic Cues For centuries, humans have used non verbal signals and behaviors to communicate with others. Focusing on the primate animals of different species, they have some sort of paralinguistic and non verbal characteristics that aid them in communication. It is quite clear that animals and human beings share certain aspects of this form of communication. Animals cannot communicate as human beings through verbal and meaningful terms due to their inherent biological and cognitive ability. Charles Darwin first made the attempt a century ago to describe the existence of non verbal behaviour in both man and animals stating that humans act this way largely because are vestiges of serviceable associated behaviors that previous in their evolutionary history had definite functions (Krauss, n.d). Even before Darwin’s work, paralinguistic cues established in the human voices had been resumed to have some form of innate relationship. Darwin noted that specific situations and emotions influenced animals’ signals and hence suggested the likely evolutionary continuity in the humans’ vocal usage (Misra, 2000). However, verbal communication evolved after the non verbal communication for which the latter aided humans to survive before the former came to develop. Later on in the 20th century, psychologists have sought to enhance knowledge of the ancient and resilient para-verbal study. Like other majority mammals, humans use their sensory organs like the fingers upon touch, noses, eyes, and ears during smelling and blinking among others, to aid in delivering their paralinguistic signals. According to Maran et al, sensory organs for mammals also act as the organs of transmission of the messages (2011). Therefore, human’s vocalization has adopted the communicative function of their paralinguistic signals. More of these paralinguistic cues and behavior can be established through zookinesics, based on how humans use their motor patterns, movements and postures to produce a message to the outside world. The paralinguistic and kinesics in humans are part of their zoosemiotic system with varying characteristics among human cultures. The vascular theory of emotional inference explains the facial expressions of emotions, through the variation in the celebral temperature, controlled by the venous flow of blood into the brain (Krauss, n.d.). Paralinguistic cues are still evolving and currently being advanced through the computer mediated communications. Nature of Paralinguistic Cues Different factors contributing to paralinguistic cues vary in their use based on cultures diversity. Separate from the actual social language, the elements and nuance in a speech are very significant to the sender and the receiver of the message. Para-verbal cues that accompany verbal messages consist of volume, inflection, grunts, pitch and tone of voice, and other non language vocalization that tend to be universally practiced and unaffected by cultural differences (Daniels, 2004). 1. Volume People utter words with different range of voice loudness depending with the situation or message they want to convey. Loudness and low voice may imply two different things. The intensity the speaker uses in producing a speech either forcefully or quietly influence the impression of the message to the listener. For example, a loud forceful voice would match the spoken message of an angry person. 2. Pitch The speakers use certain keys in their phrase to sensitive to the listeners the information being conveyed at a particular point in time. Basically, is the pitch high or low at the end or in the beginning of the phrase? With respect to the statement produced, different pitch boundaries like low and high rising, low and partially falling could all end up transmitting different inferences and meanings and inference upon utterance (Turney, 2004). For example, at a time of fear pitch can contour up, and while expecting to raise a question, higher pitch level could be expected than when producing a statement. 3. Tempo Much in recognizing the cultures of different people is discovered from their rate at which they speak. People of different natives would speak at varying pace; some at a slow or faster rate compared to the established normal tempo. Speakers can be able to change their rate/speed of speech involuntarily or deliberately to affect the different disciplines dealing with spoken communication (Trouvain, 2003). The other factor is sonority and is based on the quality of sound produced from the voice segments. From a phrase or words spoken, the syllabic segments produce a varying sonority, with the vowels being at a higher rank in sonority scale than consonants (Personal.rdg.ac.uk, n.d.). This determines how pleasant the voice sounds to the listener. 4. Inflection When people speak, some can do so with no inflection, others with certain inflections of the words they use to express the timing and other distinguishable differences of what they are addressing. Different vocal varieties are produced with the modulation of the intonation in the voices. The other factor is articulation, which considers the pronunciation of words in context of the message. Some people give a slurred speech caused by different factors including their cents and brain disorders that make articulation of certain words in a specific language difficult to comprehend or give erroneous impression. 5. Rhythm and fluidity The human speech contains patterns of sounds produced that exhibit varying and alternating degree o noise for a timed period. Each language has its rhythm, with pauses, some parts louder and quite than others repeated severally within a fraction of time (Marder, 2013). Fluidity concerns the flow of the message as it’s delivered and how consistent they are in line with the subject message intended. Vocal signals act as the filler words to connect the ideas of the two distinct phrases. Function of the Paralinguistic Cues 1. Emphasizing in Training and coaching Tutors utilize paralinguistic cues in teaching sessions for a group of students to enforce meanings and emphasis to a point. Technically, they are part of learning like in the universal English language to illustrate use of certain words in a phrase and their effects in structuring the meaning of the sentence. It plays an important role in communication skill for the language chosen and used. For example, teachers in junior schools may use different pitch levels while teaching an English class of the young pupils to distinguish which punctuation marks have been used. A question mark and an exclamation mark is expressed using a high pitch, while sonority is very effective in studying words and syllables in subjects like English. Students will pay attention to punctuations which utilizes paralinguistic cues (such as pausing and varying pitch levels) to help them read expressively, understand their reading and hearings (Reutzel, n.d.). The act of lecturing and coaching goes beyond just mere instructions and course delivery, into engaging with the students by use of various forms of non verbal language. Readings may sound very boring and non-engaging when paralinguistic cues are absent. Tutors of communication skills and language writing in discourses of applied linguistics use rhythms/repetition, intonation and pauses to stress on specific aspects and highlight differences in spoken language by different speakers (Warhol, n.d). 2. Enhance personality trait Characteristics of people serve an important function in their specific roles they perform. Paralinguistic cues enhance the impression of people’s personality traits to enable them practice with confidence and enhance their required social communication. Those people with adequate qualities of leadership and other careers, but with certain weaknesses of their voices that cause undesirable impression to the views and listeners can receive voice training to change the perception. The voice training targets the pitch levels, rate of speaking, fluency, quality, energy/force, and nonverbal cues of the body language and facial expressions to project impressions of greater control and power to perform (Ethier, 2010). Paralinguistic cues are powerful tools that enable humans to project their impression so that the audience can make better inferences about their personality traits. For example, altering the sonority and inflections of one’s voice can improve their likeability. Leaders are trained to use vocal signals that match the message they give out accompanied by suitable body language, and manage appropriately their speed of talk and tone while addressing people. Para-verbal cues are hence essential in the art of leadership and public speaking, careers that deal with client interaction for they are placed at the spotlight where they have to grope for words, stress on points and engage their listeners. Vocal cues can also distinguish individuals based on their gender, age and credibility among others. A woman and especially those young are more likely to have high pitched voices than older men. Similarly, someone who tends to speak slowly and with various intensities give the impression of confidence to the listeners in what they address compared to those who may talk faster implied to be anxious. 3. Recognizing emotions When people speak, and try to tell a particular incidence, they often use certain words and sound that is not part of the language being used. In fact, they could be used in diverse languages across the universe to illustrate the emotion and moods. Laughter and cry are among the few of emotional vocal signals used widely across cultural groups to distinguish joy and sadness, respectively among people (Sauter et al, n.d.). Since the emotions are individuals’ multidimensional reaction to a situation, different feelings would be recognized through use of vocal sounds among those listening and the speaker. The paralinguistic cues in human speeches are used to express an ongoing emotional state. When people are surprised, words like ‘waaaah and mhhhhhh’ are common and express the feeling at the occurrence. Vocal cues like ‘aiiih’ express some doubt, ‘oooh’ would fit for pitying situation and mmmh when disgusted. Based on a research conducted by G Wallbort and R. Scherer on emotion recognition, they found that regardless of the channel used (audio, video, audio-video and filtered audio), non verbal cues use reveal different emotions (1986). Cues such as tonal and pitch variation in voice are expressive aspects in attitudes and emotional qualities. For example, repetitive screams at high pitch may represent danger or send a warning signal to the rest of the people, or call for help. 4. Music Music entails much of prosodic information and patterns. Different languages can utilize diverse metric patterns of the speech. Accustomed to a specific culture one will know and understand the message or speech that would follow the tunes before they are even spoken through rhythms. Music deals with pitch, various prosodic features and vocal variations to deliver their content to the audience. Paralinguistic cues act to enhance the different abilities in music field. Musicians can quickly establish pitch changes in musical stimuli than others because of non verbal vocal cues are part of their music coding and encoding. Musical use of paralinguistic cues also support to reveal emotions carried by the vocal signals. A research conducted by Thompson et al found that musically trained people were better in extracting prosodic information from music and speech, even those spoken in unfamiliar language, and were in a good position to interpret speech prosody and express emotional information (2003). Hyms, melodies and cultural songs among other types of music have their rhythms and pitch level among other cues that leave substantial impression to the viewer and listeners. 5. People with disabilities A large number of people in the societies have certain disabilities that require special mechanisms to enhance their learning disabilities. While a group of those with hearing problems highly depend on the visual systems and non verbal cues such as body movements, gestures and facial expressions, others with sight disabilities are inclined to pay attention to voices to judge the situation. For example, blind people have prospered despite the disability they have. Most of their strongholds are in study of voice elements, and dependence of other sensory organs to assist them to understand and interpret messages. Teachers in school for the blind have to enhance their communication abilities through use of vocal signals to enhance the richness of the information conveyed recapture of the information lost through visual cues and allow timely delivery of the message. Even the blind use paralanguage skills in receiving and sending information and help them cue others into their conversational information. These vocal signals and other non verbal communication is extensively been used in therapeutic activities for patients with communication and auditory processing disorders to enhance their perception of speech. First of all, as children grow up, they rely more on non verbal signs for social interaction and expression and interpretation of the ongoing emotions. From body language facial expressions and most critically the vocal cues like the variation in voices by humming to soothe, laughing loudly besides the smile for happy moments and through words like weeeh! and heeee! to warn them of something. It is similar for patients undergoing therapies to improve the brain ability to perceive sound characteristics from music and speech that utilize prosody, volumes and vocal variations in voices (Sheridan and Cunningham, 2009). With the comprehension of the paralinguistic cues and their processing in the human brain, therapists can use them to provide step by step solution to such disorders that impair communication function. 6. Bringing contradictions There is a high tendency of people to use deceptive means through manipulation of paralanguage cues to influence and convince others over an issue. At times, when people speak a certain message, the non verbal and paralinguistic cues they use fail to or are altered to match the spoken words. The non verbal communication has always been viewed to be the first critical aspect that can betray the speaker/reader and hence, controlling it would serve right to conceal their truth. Contradiction occurs when the delivered non verbal and verbal messages conflict, with the words used projecting a specific message, but the paralinguistic cues used express the person’s actual and contrasting message (Highered.mcgraw-hill.com, n.d.). The use of paralinguistic cues can assist in detecting truths and lies among users. As much as a person can manipulate their eye contact to send away a stranger, manipulated vocal signals can be used to lessen the impact of a spoken message and non verbally influence others perceptions. Computer mediated communications (CMC) Modern communication technologies by use of internets, computing and cell phones have created various controversies over their benefits in communication. Proponents argue that certain aspects, especially the emotions that are often projected in non verbal vocal signals that cannot be availed through CMC are difficult to convey. Communicating emotions via CMC is an area that needs comprehensive research. However, David Crystal expresses repeated punctuation marks and letters, letter spacing, use of asterisks to emphasize and capital letters to communicate loudness (Kalman and Gergle, n.d). The CMC have now embedded most of the paralinguistic and vocal signals to compliment the verbal messages and represent factors like emotions through icons for communicative reasons. Paralinguistic cues play an important role in producing a sarcastic intent in TV shows and live performances. Most sarcastic speakers play around with paralanguage cues like the tone of voice and other non verbal signals that stress, compliment or substitute their verbal communication. On the other hand when applied in diverse cultures and languages, non natives can interpret the signs to overcome language barriers and comprehend parts of the languages. Conclusion Paralinguistic cues are part f the broader non verbal languages used in communication by human beings. Its origin can be described through evolution of functions used in the early period and was to enhance survival. It was the part of what human and other primate animals share delivering non verbal communication. Paralinguistic cues can be used in diverse areas of application in business function and personal capacity. In their functions, they emphasize certain areas, compliment verbal messages, substitute certain words and regulate meanings and bring contradictions upon their application. They serve important roles in indicating sarcasm, in overcoming language barriers, in computer mediated communication establishing and enhancing personality traits, in music industry, in supporting people with disabilities, recognizing emotions and training students and pupils in communication skills and foreign languages. Reference List Daniels, R., 2004. Nursing Fundamentals: Caring & Clinical Decision Making. New York: Thompson| Delmer Learning. Ethier, N. A., 2010. Paralinguistic and Nonverbal Behaviours in Social Interactions: A Lens Model perspective. [online] Available at: https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/bitstream/handle/10012/5673/Ethier_Nicole.pdf?sequence=1 [Accessed 26 December 2013]. Highered.mcgraw-hill.com, n.d. Non Verbal Communication. [online] Available at:[Accessed 26 December 2013]. Kalman, Y. M. and Gergle D., n. d. Letter and Punctuation Mark Repeats as Cues in Computer Mediated Communication. [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 December 2013]. Krauss, R. 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